I don’t know who is running WFC 2016

This is somewhat important to me, because you might remember a couple years ago when CONTEXT blew up in Columbus. It wasn’t the policy that caused the problem there. It was the reaction by some of the members of the Board and lack of enforcing that policy. One of those people in particular, Dennis Palmer, is president of the board of SOLAE, which also sponsors MARCon, another Columbus convention. There’s a lot of overlap in the folks who run sf/f conventions in Columbus (and Cincinnati, for that matter), so I’ve been a bit skittish for the last two years. Were the same people running things? I could only guess.

That mild worry got worse when I read WFC 2016’s policy.

WFC2016’s Policy Is Problematic

Let’s get rid of the “But it’s WFC, it doesn’t recur!” straw man. If we’re going to take that approach, then you are guaranteeing that any traveling convention is going to be a safe space for creepers and harassers. In which case, I’m not going.

Second, it puts a huge burden on the victim to be able to immediately feel safe enough to report any incidents. If you really need someone to unpack why that’s a problem… well, that’s another blog post itself.

Given Columbus convention history, this repeated emphasis on immediate reporting is even more problematic. If you remember what happened at CONTEXT, such a clause would have made all the reports of harassment that spanned several years moot, and allowed the harassment to continue in future years. Another case that would have been significantly different – and allowed harassment to continue – is that of Jim Frenkel, where a pattern of behavior spanning years could have been simply ignored by convention staff because it didn’t come to light during the hours of the convention.

Which is awfully convenient, don’t you think?

The Emphasis Seems To Be On “Just Be Nice”, Not Policy

Especially when it’s not a guarantee that your report will be heard sympathetically. For example, there’s plenty of people like “moritheil” who claim that harassment policies are apparently optional societal standards (full conversation at https://storify.com/uriel1998/societal-standards)

@tinytempest@uriel1998 Nonsense? How about the assertion that a set of values and methods recently arrived at have to be followed by all?

Or consider that Dennis Palmer – one of the people who were part of the problems handling sexual harassment that originally caused me to resign from CONTEXT – was also the co-chair of Ops for that convention. Which means he would have possibly handled the harassment complaint. The people who came to me specifically did so because they knew I would handle it with seriousness and not blow them off or take them lightly.

Volunteer-Run or Not, You Have to Reach Out To Con-Goers

And don’t give me that “it’s just volunteers” crap. Penguicon has an exemplary policy, and it showed in both the number of attendees and the amount of fun people had. Over the last few years, as more and more conventions have dealt with these issues, there are plenty of examples floating around – including examples of what not to do. Hell, Jim Hines even put together a “Starter Kit” in case you had to build it from the ground up.

There isn’t an excuse any longer. Having a policy, enforcing it, and doing both clearly enough that people trust you to do it is a minimum standard for any convention at this point.

My tolerance for this kind of shenanigans is just…gone. I don’t have the luxury of whipsawing around and waiting to see if WFC2016 – or any other convention – can get its act together sufficiently that I and my friends feel safe there.

It isn’t the congoer’s jobs to investigate policy, enforcement, and see whether or not they’ll be accepted and feel safe. It’s the conrunner’s jobs to reach out to congoers.

I hope I’m wrong. I hope that every last one of my fears is unfounded, that everything goes wonderfully, and in the awful event that there is an issue, that it’s dealt with quickly and fairly.

But I’m sick of having to push and scream and yell for something so basic as ensuring that I and my friends are safe.

If you would like for me to transfer my WFC 2016 membership to you at the $150 price, please contact me via e-mail.